


Better Still

by PlotDotOh (TheCheerfulPornographer), radial_symmetry



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, It Gets Better, LGBT, Sherlock is growing up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-14
Updated: 2011-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-24 14:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCheerfulPornographer/pseuds/PlotDotOh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/radial_symmetry/pseuds/radial_symmetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock records a video for the It Gets Better project.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Still

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Taptaptap.

He drums his long, thin fingers against the wooden desk, staring at the laptop propped open in front of him.

Not John's, for once. No, this time he had put in all of the effort to haul himself up from the chair (John's steps echoing down the stairs), wind a path _all_ the way over to his room (a pause — John is putting on his coat), root around in the piles of papers and books (the squeak of the door opening, the muffled thud when it is closed), and finally locate his own laptop. Bothered to brush off the thick layer of dust and grime, wait an absolutely intolerable length of time for it to start, and carry it back out into the living room.

Even though John's laptop is sitting right there on the chair, open and inviting, and John gone out for dinner, to the pub, not even bothering to lock the screen anymore.

Tonight, for some reason, he doesn't want to use John's machine.

Taptaptap. Faster and faster. He frowns as the sound enters awareness, and he stops.

Then silence, heavy and sudden and thick. On the screen, an image of his face stares back, a simulation turned pale and flattened, unreal. A ghost in the machine.

Taking a sudden quick breath, he leans forward toward the desk. Presses down on the button to record. Clears his throat, and begins to speak.

\---

"Hello. My name is — well, actually, I don't care to share my name. Not because I'm embarrassed. I just value my privacy, that's all."

"I live in London, and I'm a – I work as a – ....I work in the legal profession."

Shit. No. This isn't going to work. Not with lies. Not with lying about things as basic as that.

Lean forward, stab at the button labeled Stop. Then back. Erase. Watch the fumbling, the hesitance, the awkwardness fade away. (If only real life could be the same.)

Deep breath. No. There's no help for it, now.

If he's going to do this, he has to do it for real. Has to do it right. Not hiding like a child, but saying his piece and saying it well.

Rarely is that ever so difficult, for him.

(It is difficult now.)

A sip of water, to moisten his throat. Another deep breath, and another after that.

Lean forward again, and press Record.

\---

"My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I live in London. I'm the world's only consulting detective. And I'm here to talk about... about things getting better." There. Now it's said, pressed firmly into place. His imprint. Hello world; here he is.

What comes next? Building his case. Start to lay out the facts.

"When I was very young... actually for about as long as I can remember, I've always been... different. From everyone else. Being gay — which I am, obviously — was part of that, but only the smallest part. It's more that I — I don't _think_ the way that normal people do, my brain doesn't work the same way as theirs. The things that I see, the things that I know — I see things that other people somehow overlook, and know things that other people don't seem to realize."

"My whole life, people have hated me for that."

A pause. Collecting his thoughts.

"I have, for a long time, told myself that this fact is irrelevant. That others' opinions don't matter, just so long as they leave me alone. I have come to realize, recently, that I was partly incorrect."

Wait. This is already tumbling out of control. Back up. Go through it in order, build your case.

Lay out the facts.

"When I was young, in school, they didn't. Leave me alone, that is. I was... I got in a lot of fights. Ended up with black eyes, busted lips..." He waves his hands in an abstract gesture, as if to encompass the world of cruelties that children inflict upon each other.

"Over time, I learned how to defend myself. With my mind, with my words, and when necessary, with my fists." Fists, teeth, elbows, fingernails, boots, whatever it took. Anything, to make them go away.

And then the wincing in front of his mother afterwards, the wilting under the force of her disappointment, while never allowing himself to look away. He always forced himself to meet her eyes, until she was the one to turn her face to the side. (As if facing her would somehow help her understand his truth. Help her to see that words were not enough, that words alone would never keep him safe. That, for him, there would _always_ be a fight.)

"Over time, I developed a reputation. The children talked, as children tend to do; word got around that I was queer and a _freak_ , but also that I would repay violence in kind. In kind, and unkindly, and on the most personal terms. And eventually, even their dull minds absorbed the fact that I was more trouble that I was worth."

"Finally, people left me alone. In some ways, that became even worse." At least with the fighting, there had been human contact. Some acknowledgement from others, his existence still a fact. Some form of touch: a fist was still skin. Human contact. Even when it only hurt.

"I became very isolated. Very alone. I would go for _weeks_ without speaking outside of a class. I... I thought I was alone in the world. I had no friends, and my family was... inaccessible, in various ways." Mycroft, by then, was away and very busy, and Mummy... well.

In some ways, he thought, his growing silence had pleased her. When he didn't speak, she didn't have to be reminded of what a disappointment he was. What a disappointment he had _always_ been.

"I was alone, with nothing to distract me from my thoughts. Just me, all by myself, all of the time. And when I did try to speak, try to share something important, something I _saw_ " — Carl Powers, the shoes — "no one would listen. They had all forgotten who I was." He clears his throat. "I think that I began to go a little bit insane."

"Sometime after that, I started abusing narcotics. At first, I used cocaine quite a lot. It seemed — not exactly to dull my mind, but to make the world speed up until I _couldn't_ see it all. And it stopped me caring, stopped me _noticing_ that I was all alone. Then I tried heroin, which helped me to forget. Then ecstasy, and I would go out all night. On ecstasy, I could allow myself to be touched — " His voice breaks, just a bit. Unexpectedly. He had thought this would be the easy part, simple recitation of facts. He isn't ashamed of it, after all.

His drug use had been a logical response to his circumstances. He would do the same thing again, if those circumstances were the same. (They weren't, of course. They wouldn't ever be.) But the difference between _then_ and _now_ was so sharp and bright that it could cut.

"By the time I was done with school, I simply didn't care anymore. Didn't care about anything but distracting myself, getting high and making my brain shut down. And then, when I came down, figuring out how to do it all again. The "real world" held nothing of interest for me; and I saw no point in preserving my mind, for I could not conceive of any possible use for it."

"I reached a point where I was living on the street."

In retrospect, that had been the low point of it all. Hiding from cameras, sleeping in alleyways, because those were the only places Mycroft wouldn't find him right away. "I isolated myself from my family, from everyone, from all of the people" — all _one_ of them, at that point — "who cared about me, because I knew that they would try to make me stop. And I didn't want to stop."

"I honestly believed that there was nothing better for me, and that all I had to look forward to was more of the same. More drugs, more and more of them to shut up my brain, to not _know_ anymore, to not _see_. More and more of the same, until I died."

The words feel gritty and harsh against his tongue. He rolls them over, sips water, spits it back into the glass. "I never attempted to take my own life, but I did absolutely nothing to try to preserve it." He sees himself then, shaking and too thin. Hollow eyes, hiding an overfull mind. "Eventually I overdosed."

"I was lucky. Someone found me — a policeman, just in time. He saved my life. I woke up in the hospital, with my brother by my side."

He had cursed at Mycroft, screamed terrible things. Mostly been out of his mind. Veered wildly between terror and rage, burning, a fire in the backs of his eyes. Like needles, stabbing at the base of his neck; like concrete, set into the hollow of his jaw. And the pain — such pain, like all his nerves were strung with glass. A man of glass and wires; torn up knuckles, busted lip.

Mycroft had just looked at him, remained silent. Refused to look away. (He will remember that always, how he'd refused to look away.)

"He helped me get clean, and find a place to live." Then the withdrawal — shaking so hard that he couldn't hold a pen. Cursing, sweating, like a caged animal. Broken wires, nerves strung with glass. Disgusting.

(This part, he _does_ feel ashamed about.)

But there's no need to go into such detail now.

"In the end, I realized that.. he did care about me, in his own way. That he wanted to help. And also that the sooner I got back onto my feet, the sooner I wouldn't _need_ his help anymore."

"But what really helped me was that I got a job. The same policeman who found me, he... Well. In his own narrow way, he has some insight, I suppose. At least, he saw how I could be useful to them. How my... differences, the things that I see — the fact that I can actually use simple logic and make standard deductions — could be helpful to them. Since they were sorely lacking in such skills at the time."

"This gave me, for the first time, a sense of... of worth. Of possibility. That maybe my brain could be a good thing, not a curse. That, because I'm a freak, because of the things that I see and the things that I know, there was something I could do. Something that _only_ I could do. And for the first time in a very, very long time, I had something to look forward to. A reason to live."

But oh, god, those agonizing spaces in between. The long grey hours without a case, without anything to divert the flow of his thoughts as they circled around and around and around.

Without even the drugs to distract him anymore; for he kept his end of his bargain with Mycroft. He could participate in cases and live on his own, as long as he stayed clean; and there were days he was _almost_ convinced it was a poor trade. Several times, he found himself standing at the door, coat in hand, feet pointed toward one of the people he had known. One of London's many helpful suppliers. But each time, he managed to turn himself back, distracting himself with the violin, making experiments out of whatever he had.

This is meant to be a hopeful message, though, and so he will also leave that part out. (And besides, things are easier, now.)

He realizes that the pause has grown awkwardly long.

"Anyways, here I am. The worlds only consulting detective. I solve the things that no one else can solve." Especially not those idiots down at the Yard, he can't help thinking. But he doesn't say it out loud — which must be a progress of some kind.

"And, I have a... a friend." He hesitates, the word feeling too large for his mouth. Is that the right label for John, at this point? There are so many shadows there, in that garden of forking paths. So many possible outcomes. This future is too big for even his brain to grasp. (How do normal people handle it?) Ah well, leave it for now. "I have a _good_ friend, someone who... understands."

"Someone who _cares_ for me," — miraculously, somehow — " even though his brain doesn't work the way mine does. Even though I'm a freak."

"He cares for me, and." A sudden thickness in his throat. Realization of what he is about to say, the truth of it hitting alongside the words. "And I care for him, too, a great deal."

He clears his throat, runs through 50 digits of pi. When his voice is steady again, he goes on.

"It's impossible to know this objectively, of course, but _subjectively_." This word is strange and sour, like biting a lemon. His mouth twists. "Subjectively speaking, I believe that my life is better now than it has ever been in the past."

"If you're like me..." Part of his brain still objects. Requires caveats. Finds value in being precise. "Well, chances are that _you're_ not. But... The population of the world is large enough, and our species displays enough neurological diversity to make it probable that someone exists, someone who's alive right now, whose brain is significantly similar to my own."

"We do seem to pop up, from time to time."

"And if you're that one person, if you're... like me. If you're a freak. If you see things that other people don't see, if you know things that other people don't know. Whatever your sexuality, gay, straight, bi, asexual... If you feel like an alien, like there's no one else like you in the whole universe... I just want you to know that it's not true."

" _Obviously_ it isn't, because I'm here, and clearly I exist."

"It's likely that we'll never meet, never speak. But I still want you to know that... that you aren't the only one."

Swallows hard. A strange weight in the pit of his gut, a sort of heavy lightness. Light heaviness? Ugh, that makes no _sense_. Carry on.

"I want you to know that I made it through. I made it out. And therefore, you can, as well."

"It may be a long road. It will _never_ be easy. But."

"But if you can find that thing, that one thing that your mind can uniquely do, that one thing that puts your talents to good use; and if you can find that friend, that one person who will look at you and really _see_ you, and not leave, that one person who may not be like you, but who will try to understand you and help you and... and love you, love you _for_ your freakishness, not just tolerate you while they try to make you change."

"If you can find those two things, your work and your friend, just those two... Then you'll be okay."

"I promise you: you _will_ be okay."

"Subjectively, my life is better now. I... I feel better than I remember ever feeling before. And... I think I am becoming different. Different from how I have been before now."

Out of glass and broken wires, he is growing flesh and bone. Still broken, but in a way that can maybe, someday, heal.

And he is learning. There are mysteries that he is just _starting_ to explore. (His friend will help. John understands these things.)

"Of course, it's pointless to hypothesize in advance of the facts." How often does he rail against others for doing just that? "But subjectively, I..." Clears his throat, again. Shouldn't need to, does. (Mysteries.)

"Subjectively, I believe that it may get better still."

\---

Leans forward, hits Stop, stares at the frozen screen.

There it is: himself, captured. His shadows exposed.

Does he dare?

Is this who he is now, someone who can do _this_?

His shadows recorded and then sent out across the wire, bits of himself streaming all around the globe. Passing through a thousand ordinary minds — a hundred thousand, a million, a billion — and then that _one_.

That one person to whom his words might make sense. That one other person, somewhere out there, who is like him.

And what might have been different, if Sherlock had known it then? If he'd known, in his darkest days, that there was somebody else? Someone who had a good life, had a purpose, had a _friend_?

If he had known that he wasn't the only one?

It might have changed nothing. Or it might have changed it all.

\---

He clicks once, twice, thrice, types a label, presses Send. And the bits go streaming out, all around the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Quite awhile after I wrote this, I discovered that someone had written a very similar fic with the same premise, well before this one. It can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/130845). I wasn't aware of it at the time of this writing.
> 
> I struggled with the question of whether an act like this would be out of character. But I think that, were Sherlock to develop empathy for anyone in the abstract, it would be for the thought of someone very much like himself.


End file.
